


The Ground Under Your Feet

by Woldy



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Break Up, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woldy/pseuds/Woldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this was a plot from <em>Sex and the City</em> then Gwen would be wearing a thousand dollar outfit and sighing over Mr Big in his limo, not immobilized by the sight of her ex-girlfriend in the frozen food aisle of Safeway. Real life, Gwen realized, was nothing like television.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: Safeway

**Author's Note:**

> This is not betaed, and I apologise for any mistakes. I started this story over 2 years ago and have made only minimal progress since. Usually I don't post WIPs because it frustrates me as a reader when people post the beginning of a story and don't finish it, but I'm hoping that posting chapter 1 will force me to get to work on the rest of this fic. It is very possible that the later chapters will take months, or never get finished at all - read at your own risk!

_"Just remind me of you  
My remembering will paw up the ground under your feet  
That's what it's come to between us."_ Vasco Popa

  
Chapter 1: Safeway

Until it happened to you, the question of what to do when you were unexpectedly confronted with an ex seemed abstract and irrelevant. It sounded like a _Sex and the City_ storyline, something she and Morgana might have laughed about once as they sprawled on the bed with mugs of red wine to watch Carrie being an idiot on somebody's laptop. Morgana had interrupted one episode with a diatribe about Schopenhauer, and they'd had a bullshit debate about the merits of postmodernism. When Gwen was drunk, nineteen, and in love for the first time, the idea of being single and heartbroken had seemed impossible.

If this _was_ a plot from Sex and the City then Gwen would have a table full of girlfriends waiting in a cafe to discuss every detail and help her devise a quip for her column. If she was Carrie, then she would be wearing a thousand dollar outfit and sighing over Mr Big in his limo, not immobilized by the sight of her ex-girlfriend in the frozen food aisle of Safeway. Real life, Gwen realized, was nothing like television.

If she left now, Gwen might still escape without Morgana seeing her. But what if Morgana saw her leaving and didn't even care enough to follow her? Or caught her in the act of running away, necessitating some kind of horribly awkward conversation?

Gwen hesitated in the middle of the aisle, fingers clenched around the handle of her shopping trolley.

"Shift over, love. Some of us are trying to get past, yeah?"

Morgana looked up, a package of frozen peas dangling from her hand, and saw Gwen. Gwen watched Morgana's eyes widen in recognition, and made an instant decision -- she turned and fled.

Gwen pushed through the queue for the cash register, not even pausing to apologize, and had almost reached the doors of the supermarket when she heard Morgana shout, "Gwen!"

She only hesitated for a moment, and Morgana's hand landed on her shoulder.

"Don't go!" Morgana said in a broken voice. "I've been wondering how you were. I tried to call you to apologize, but your number had changed and--"

"What would you have said?" Gwen asked, whirling round to face her. "How were you even going to begin to explain that -- no, don't I even care what you're going to say. I'm not doing this. I have to go."

She tried to move away, but Morgana's fingers clutched tighter around her arm.

"No, Gwen, I--"

"Let go of my arm," Gwen said loudly, and saw the Security Guard start moving towards them.

"Is this woman bothering you?" the guard said, and Morgana released her abruptly.

Morgana stared for a moment, her face ashen.

"If either of us needs to go it's me," she said and turned, heading out through the doors and onto the street.

"Are you all right?" the security guard asked, watching Morgana suspiciously as she walked away. "I can go after her. We can get her name and picture, and ban her from the shop."

"I'm fine," Gwen said, trying to force her voice calm. "She didn't attack me. We -- we knew each other once."

The security guard frowned, but didn't press the point and after a moment he nodded and returned to his spot by the doorway. His eyes followed Morgana along the pavement.

Gwen stood there, shaking, and tried to compose herself enough to finish the groceries.

It took several minutes of just standing still and breathing, looking for all the world like a crazy person, before Gwen was calm enough to retrieve the trolley. She hurried through the rest of the supermarket, and got all the way home with her shopping before realizing that she'd forgotten to buy any milk.

The lights were on in the house, and she found Merlin in the living room, hunched over his laptop and still in the hoody and baggy blue pajamas he'd worn at breakfast. Evidently this was one of the days when Merlin was 'working from home', but he seemed engrossed in the task and didn't look up when she passed.

Methodically, Gwen begun to put away the shopping and debated whether it was worth going back out to get some milk. There was no way she could return to Safeway, in case Morgana returned for her abandoned shopping basket, but maybe the corner shop would have milk?

She glanced down at the box she was holding and realized her hands were still shaking. Right. It was probably best to get a grip on herself before going anywhere.

Gwen was in the process of making tea when the door banged and Lance shouted "Anyone home?"

"I'm in here," she called.

"Evening Merlin," Lance said, and she heard Merlin mumble a reply.

A few seconds later Lance appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking suave in a navy blue suit.

"If you're making tea then I'd love a cup."

"I'm afraid there's no milk," Gwen said apologetically. "I was going to buy milk but-"

She paused, took a deep breath and finished, "I ran into Morgana in Safeway."

"Christ," Lance said in a low voice, and crossed the room to pull her into a hug.

"I know it's ridiculous." Gwen said, voice muffled from being squished against his shoulder. "It's been nearly three years, so I shouldn't let it get to me like this. I thought I was doing better, Lance, but everything came back and..."

"It's all right," Lance said, rubbing circles on her back in a way that was probably supposed to be soothing. Gwen leaned against his shoulder, took several deep breaths to compose herself, and after a moment Lance loosened his hug to examine her face.

"I'm okay," said Gwen, and he gave her a look of blatant disbelief. "All right, no, I feel like shit right now, but I'll be okay tomorrow. There weren't any, you know, disasters with the police or anything."

"What about the police?" Merlin called out, and Gwen groaned, burying her head against Lance's shoulder again.

"We don't have any milk because I had a run in with my ex," she said.

"Er, right," said Merlin uncertainly.

"It was a bad breakup," added Lance.

"I gathered that."

"No, I mean... Quite possibly the world's worst breakup," said Lance.

"And it involved the police?" Merlin asked, in a tone that suggested that things weren't, as yet, making any kind of sense.

"Not just the police," Gwen said, lifting her head and pulling away from Lance. "Also the national media and her father. God, I need a drink if we're going to talk about this."

"Well, alcohol is something we do have," said Lance, moving towards the drinks cupboard. "Beer or wine? I think there's some white open in the fridge if-"

Gwen looked from Lance, dependable and solid as always, to Merlin who was leaning up against the door frame in his usual slouch.

A couple of months wasn't long to get to know someone, but Merlin had become a good friend. He was funny, and gay, and judging by his sympathetic expression Merlin knew what it was to get your heart broken.

"Baileys," Gwen decided, and Lance passed her the bottle.

"What'll you have, Merlin?"

"Baileys is fine with me," Merlin said, straightening up and fetching glasses for them both. "So, you had the world's worst breakup."

Gwen sloshed some Baileys into her glass, took a gulp, and slid the bottle across the counter towards him. "In my final year at university. Morgana and I were going out, and she went missing."

"That doesn't begin to describe it," said Lance, gesticulating at them with his bottle of lager. "You weren't just going out. They were _living together_ , Merlin."

"What do you mean 'missing'?" Merlin asked carefully, and Gwen took another swig of Baileys to fortify herself.

"All right," she said, willing her hands to stop shaking. "I suppose I should start at the beginning..."  



	2. School

Technically, Gwen had known Lancelot since they were eleven, but the first time they had an actual conversation was during interview week in Oxford. The journey to Oxford from London only took an hour, but they might as well have been stepping into another world - a world of gleaming spires populated by intimidating cliques of white people with posh accents. 

At school Gwen hadn't thought she had much in common with Lancelot. While she was reading history books in the library, Lancelot was busy captaining the football team. He was just one of a group of lads that Gwen passed in the corridors, ducking her head to ward off catcalls. Here, where everybody else seemed to be accompanied by a group of friends from their public school, Lancelot was her only port in a storm and Gwen was very glad her careers advisor had suggested they exchange phone numbers.

"We don't fit in, do we?" Gwen said, watching the hoards of white faces and school scarves flow past the window of the cafe.

"Nobody does, yet," Lancelot said equably. "That's what the interviews are for."

"Doesn't it intimidate you?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging easily. "But worrying about it doesn't help. Psychology is half the game - get too nervous and you've lost before even stepping onto the pitch."

"So I need to be more...competitive?" Gwen asked, hearing her own uncertainty.

"Be in it to win it," Lancelot confirmed, fixing her with a serious look, and Gwen suddenly understood why he'd spent the past three years as the captain of the football team. 

"Right," she said, a little uncomfortable with the idea but also a bit reassured. "Thanks."

Lancelot smiled at her. "You'll be all right. You spent more time in the library than anyone, and the grapevine says you know more about history than Mrs Cooper."

"That's not exactly - I just thought she was missing a bit of the context-" Gwen begun, flushing, and Lancelot grinned.

"See? You'll be great."

Her interviews were terrifying, but Gwen tried to remember Lancelot's advice and answered the questions as best she could. It was only towards the end of the final interview that she managed to forget her nerves, and spent an animated twenty minutes discussing sixteenth century Italian history. The next week was hellish and far too stressful to be a real Christmas holiday, and then the phone call came.

"Miss Smith?" enquired a posh voice, and Gwen recognized her final interviewer.

"Yes, that's me." _God, her voice was shaking_.

"I have good news," he said, voice warm. "We'd like to offer you a place to read history..." The rest of the conversation passed in a kind of blur.

Gwen didn't dare phone Lancelot, because what if he hadn't got in and there she was bragging about her own luck? She guessed Lancelot had been thinking the same thing, because he didn't call her either. They didn't speak again until the first day back at school, when she saw Lancelot in the hallway surrounded by his football mates. They were laughing and jostling him, and Lancelot looked pleased but embarrassed, and when one of them said "Oooo, too posh for us, then," Gwen knew he'd got a place.

A moment later Lancelot looked up and saw her. He raised his eyebrows at her, and Gwen couldn't help but grin at him.

"Brilliant!" he said, and his mates looked around to see who he was addressing. "Gwen and I will be going to Oxford together."

"It hasn't really sunk in yet," Gwen said, ducking her head in the face of the sudden attention and feeling only seconds away from catcalls. She might be too old to be called a swot and a teacher's pet, but she hadn't forgotten.

Lancelot seemed to realise he'd made her uncomfortable, because he said, "Let's catch up later," and Gwen flashed him a grateful half-smile before hurrying away.

They weren't exactly friends during those final months of school, but they chatted often enough that Gwen stopped feeling nervous every time she was around his football mates. By June the stress of taking A-levels made her feel too sick to talk to anybody, really, but she saw Lancelot leaving an exam a few minutes before the start of her European history paper. 

Lancelot looked tense, but he gave her a thumbs up and Gwen remembered the reassurance he'd given her at Oxford. _You know this,_ she told herself firmly, and couldn't help smiling when she turned over the exam paper fifteen minutes later to find almost the exact questions she'd hoped for. Three hours later, she left the exam almost certain she'd got an A and found Lancelot lying on the grass at the side of the school.

"What are you doing there?"

"Waiting for you," he said, rolling over to look at her. "How'd it go?"

"Good, I think," Gwen said, instinctively under-selling herself, and then corrected. "No, I know. It went very well. Yours?"

"Fine. I'm good at Economics," Lancelot said comfortably. "Just Maths left, tomorrow, then I'm done."

"Well, good luck," Gwen said, as Lancelot pushed himself to his feet. 

"It'll probably be all right. They'll take me with AAB, anyway."

"Let me know how it goes," Gwen told him, nervous already, because either she was going to get the results she wanted and go to Oxford, which was _terrifying_ , or she wasn't, which was _awful_.

"Definitely," he said, and gave her a huge hug.

There didn't seem to be anything Gwen could do to stop the anxiety mounting that summer. She read a lot of bad novels, learned to knit, helped her dad dig up the back garden to lay a patio, and finally took to watching old Star Trek episodes. The night before the results came out she was too nervous to sleep, and her mum stuck her head around the living room door at midnight to find Gwen eating popcorn in her pajamas while Captain Kirk examined a pile of tribbles.

"Are you all right? Okay, I know, stupid question. But try not to worry. It'll be all right, whatever happens. We're proud of you already." 

"Thanks mum," Gwen said, as the knot of tension in her stomach unwound infinitesimally. 

"Get some sleep," her mum advised, and then closed the door behind her.

Gwen woke up the next morning with her face pressed to the arm of the sofa and her phone buzzing beside her.

"Um...hello?"

"Hi. Is that Gwen?" said a male voice.

"Yes," Gwen said, scraping her hair out of her eyes. "Yes, sorry, it's me. I overslept. Who is this?"

"It's Lancelot," said the voice, sounding a little hurt.

"Lancelot! I'm sorry. I would have recognized your voice, but I'm not really-"

"It's fine," he said, in a voice full of laughter. "Look, I was just calling to say that I'll see you in September."

"Right..." Gwen said, waiting for her brain to catch up. _Star Trek_ she thought groggily. Then _fuck, A-Level results! Oxford!_ "September?" she said. "You'll see me in September? We made it?"

"We're going to Oxford," he said, and Gwen could hear his shit-eating grin.


End file.
